


A Response to "Intercontinental Trade During the Readceran Independence"

by stylishanachronism



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-20 22:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13727625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylishanachronism/pseuds/stylishanachronism
Summary: Camlen Holwick thinks the most important factor in the shifting political landscape of what's known as the Hollowborn Period is Defiance Bay. Camlen Holwick is Wrong.





	A Response to "Intercontinental Trade During the Readceran Independence"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks goes to Ranna for organizing this, and to Felipe (otteremporium), who did [this amazing piece](http://otteremporium.tumblr.com/post/171294255631/youre-still-up-alys-scrubs-a-hand-across-her), and Eima (kavos), who did [this equally amazing piece](http://kavos-plz.tumblr.com/post/171313584915), and to all of them for putting up with my life falling apart again.  
> If you don't recognize something I probably made it up.

_i._  
_Camlen Holwick's book, Intercontinental Trade During the Readceran Independance, does not quite dismiss Caed Nua's central importance to the subject, but absolutely downplays it, despite the city-keep remaining a central hub to this day. This would barely be a point in his favor to begin with, but considering he also completely ignores the wider context surrounding Lord Maerwald, who ruled from ~2257 A.I. until his death in 2283 A.I., through the majority of the Hollowborn crisis, and his successor, Lady Aelere, who ruled from that point until her own death in 2381 A.I., through the end of that same crisis, the Resurrection of Eothas and the destruction of the original keep, and through its rebuilding near the end of the century, the entire basis for his ideas on the period is fatally flawed. Worse, he's considered the authority on the subject, leading dozens of unwitting scholars into the same trap. Given recent discoveries, especially the rediscovery of the Eir Glanfath accords, whose accounts back up Professor Kana's memoirs, long considered little more than tall tales despite his work otherwise being the best source of information on multiple topics, Holwick's work requires, at the least, serious reevaluation. _  
_We begin with Lord Maerwald, who retook the keep singlehandedly around 2255 A.I. according to the Wacceskviða, and appears as an established power in the Ducal Records in 2258 A.I...._

"You're still up?"  
Alys scrubs a hand across her eyes, leaving a black smudge from one cheek almost up into her hairline.  
"You're not asleep either." She points out, dry, before looking back down at her books, shoulders slumping.  
"Nightmares." He says, dismissively, and she laughs.  
"Fair enough."  
He leans on the back of her chair, looking over her shoulder at the small mountain she's been sifting through the last few days, honestly mostly garbage at this point. Soaked, torn, and filthy papers, broken slates, six or seven piles that might have started as books, but aren't any more, and then her own books, barely in better condition themselves, right at the front. She has a very precise hand, as good as a professional spellwrights, but the contents of her desk...  
"What is this?"  
"The accounts. What I could find of them, anyway."  
He hesitates, then reaches for what looks like the least damaged collection of pages, wincing as fragments flutter back down.  
"This looks more like sorcery than my grimoire does." The top page is covered in a dense, even scrawl, not Alys' hand, charts tucked into charts squeezed into the margins between blurred lists, like an afterthought, and it's baffling, beyond the water damage.  
"Yes. Whoever did those wasn't very good at keeping things tidy."  
She takes it back, dropping it carelessly, and buries her hands in her hair, pressing her temples between her palms.  
"I don't know how I'm going to do this."  
"The accounts?"  
She shifts her head, waving a hand vaguely at the room.  
"This. If I had a year, and nothing else to do, I could get the accounts in order. If I had a year, and nothing else to do, I could get a handle on this ladyship business, maybe. If I had a year... Well. I don't have a year, do I?"  
She pushes her fingers away from her face, just in front of the braids that circle the back of her head, and pulls back, stretching, and from this angle the bruises under her eyes are already ugly, livid things. It's unsettling, made worse by Iselmyr's sullen silence in the back of his mind, and, well. Hopefully she's wrong.  
"I'm sorry. I'm overtired, I think."  
She drops her head forward again, laughing at herself, before he can say anything, and slides out of the chair.  
"At least try to get some sleep." He says, as she starts cutting the thread out of her hair, braids tumbling down her back.  
"Will you?" She half turns back to him, worry in the set of her mouth and the pinch between her brows, and he nods.  
"Soon. I just... need a moment."  
"Of course. Don't stay up too late? It's too cold for me."  
"I'll be along." He tries a smile, and it must come across correctly, because she smiles back and sets her penknife back on the desk.  
"Goodnight, then."  
She takes the lantern with her, the quiet tap of her boots and the shush of her skirts lingering after she's turned the corner and the light is gone, and he drops into her chair with a sigh.  
"If you've got something to say, just say it." He mutters, letting the flame he's been carrying die. The dark presses against the backs of his eyes like a physical thing, filling his skull like drowning, and Iselmyr stays silent.  
He understands the implication; Alys could use some hope, that she won't go the same way the old lord did, mad and broken, put down like a dog by people who don't love her, but just the thought makes his heart seize in his chest. If he explains Iselmyr, how long before she asks the right questions and all the rest of it comes spilling out of him? What if she sends him away, or worse, lets him stay on but can't bring herself to look at him anymore?  
"You'll make yourself ill, lad." Iselmyr unbends herself enough to comment, and he can't help the flinch, even though there's no one around to hear.  
"I can't."  
It hangs, cracked and awful, in the silence like a curse, Iselmyr going sullen again, a low frustration burning through them both, in the place where he can't tell where she ends and he begins.  
"Maybe you'll see reason in the morning." She mutters eventually, dragging him upright between one useless blink and the next, as close to a shove as she can get without a spare set of hands. And he is tired, is the thing, but- Well. Maybe things will be easier in the morning.

_ii._  
_...We know, thanks to what remains of the Ducal Records, that Lord Maerwald's lingering illness, the exact nature of which was not recorded, around the spring of 2280 A.I. sent the keep into a decline, much of the standing army disbanded and many of his responsibilities set aside in favor of his health over the course of the early part of the decade. This was a terrible thing to begin with, made worse by the Hollowborn crisis, and his nearest neighbor's, Lord Raedric, who was at the time Thane for that area, descent into madness. With the lack of responsible leaders for at least two years, it's no wonder Lady Aelere's return at some point before 2283 A.I. is even less well documented, as are her whereabouts prior to that point._  
_Unfortunately, thanks to the several disasters over the next two centuries that destroyed most records of the area going back to the Dyrwodan Independance, and in some cases earlier, the exact situation she returned to will likely be forever a mystery, but given that her work more than restored not only the keep but the lands attached to it, twice, once after his death and again after the keep was destroyed ~2290 A.I., and her recorded efficiency during the decades she ruled, where we do have records, it can easily be concluded that it was terrible, but she was capable of handling it anyway. She was Lord Maerwald's niece, older than the brother who returned with her by an unclear amount, by one of his sisters, and while logic says she was his heir as the only Watcher among his niblings, the actual reason has long been lost to time. It can be presumed she and her brother were raised as part of his household, a fairly typical arrangement for the period, and her familiarity with the day to day workings of the house, with that sort of background, would have been an enormous help getting things back into order after her uncle fell ill..._

Alys is brushing at a stain near the hem of the underdress laid out on the bed, her hair falling down around her ears, exasperation in the line of her shoulders and the quirk of her mouth, and she doesn't look up when he comes in.  
"Don't think that's coming out."  
"No, I'm going to have to stitch it away." She agrees, setting the brush aside and lifting the dress over her arm. "If it was just a little higher..." she makes a face, and Aloth snorts from his seat in the corner.  
"Where'd it come from?" He asks, taking it from her and turning it upside down. It's not a large stain, a couple of thumb sized splotches of what's hopefully mud about an inch from the hem, but it'll take a good laundress and a small miracle to get them out.  
"Oh, good, you're already dressed." She gives him a quick glance, but doesn't appear to have any complaints, which is good, since this is the nicest option he's got. "This? Gods only know. Probably somewhere between those ruins and wherever I was when I fell down that hill."  
"I meant the dress."  
"Oh, it's mine." She picks up the brush again and starts in on the overdress, fine wool a match to the underdress, but in brown instead of violet. "It went through two of my siblings and a cousin and an aunt first, but it's the best dress I've ever owned, and. Well. The fact I still have it is something of an astonishment."  
It's an astonishment it's in as good condition as it is, more like, though that does explain why it looks old fashioned.  
"I should really get it dyed again, but it's so much more expensive here." She sighs, plucking at the sleeves and fingering the split in the lining, before discarding them again. Repairable, to his eye, but not in the time they have.  
He thumps down beside Aloth, who flinches, smearing dubbin across his arm, and gives him a hard look. He nudges him with an elbow, grinning, and he looks away with what might be a roll of his eyes. There's a hole in one of his stockings, darned and worn through again at some point, and that has to be cold.  
"It's in one piece. I don't think anybody will notice a couple of seams." He offers, pulling his needle case out of his shirt and threading up.  
"Oh, they will. This is going to be a disaster." She gives up on the overdress and starts in on Kana's good shirt instead, frowning at the places it's been worn thin, nothing that will seam well, and sighs again.  
"I wish I'd known it was in this state."  
"At least the cuffs aren't covered in ink?" Aloth offers, wiping at his arm with a clean corner of the rag he's been using.  
Aloth's good shirt, the one he hasn't been wearing yet, is waiting on the rack in front of the fire, next to the nicest of Alys' shifts, stained permanently across the chest and knees and up both sleeves, and still nicer than the one she hadn't been wearing. Why she didn't follow up with a new shift, after bullying him into helping her with his shirts...  
"True."  
"Who all is going with you?"  
"Mm? Oh. You two, Kana, he wanted to see the house, not Sagani, I think? And Durance... he'll do as he pleases. There's a shrine to Magran in the place, he might want to visit?"  
"Not going to try to clean him up?"  
"I'm having enough trouble without that argument."  
She plucks at the shirt again, frowning, and jumps as the afternoon bells ring out.  
"Oh no." Aloth drops his boots on the floor as she drops the shirt back on the bed and whirls out the door.  
"Kana? Kana! We're going to be late!"  
"Alys!"  
He races after her, staggering around the corner as he goes too fast to catch himself, and then they're both gone. They'll be back, neither of them is dressed, and the only person who frets more about appearances than Alys is Aloth. There's no way they'll get anywhere near First Fires in this state.

_iii._  
_While Lady Aelere may have returned as early as 2280 A.I., when her uncle first fell ill, it's more likely she returned in 2282 A.I., given how terrible a picture the records we do have remaining paint of the situation. In any case, she first appears in the definite record at midsummer, 2283 A.I., as just two lines, declaring her uncle's death and her inheritance, in accordance with his will. If there was more to that visit, it no longer exists, though the scraps that remain of House Hadret's own records hint that she met with Duc Aevar at least once before his assassination at the end of that month._  
_More important is that she dealt with House Hadret extensively, a mystery nobody has ever properly addressed, though the implications about her interactions with the heart of the Dyrwood's spy network are intriguing. She would have been an interesting recruit for espionage, given her high profile, and if her interactions with the House were a cover for her brother's recruitment, a stupidly brilliant one. In any case, by all accounts she was an incredibly busy woman, so there may be nothing more to it than the fact she was certainly at least sometimes the most recent source of news from any number of places. Regardless, it's only the beginning of a poorly documented period, thanks to the Great Fire of 2521 A.I., and no firm conclusions about anyone's movements, much less hers, in Defiance Bay can be drawn for another five years or so._

"Well, I do think that could have gone worse!" The aumaua boy sounds... cheerful, not a good sign, and the way the twins are holding on to each other probably isn't one either. The girl especially is wound so tight she seems to be floating down the stairs, but the boy is a barely contained wreck too. Ituumak barks, and the folk boy, Adan? Edér? looks up and lifts a hand, grinning.  
"Everything go alright?"  
The girl manages a smile, forced and showing too many teeth, and her eyes aren't focusing quite right.  
"Better than expected." Her pupils stutter as they pass from the sun on the stairs to the shadow of the ruin, the skin around her eyes tightening, and her brother's mouth pulls as he glances at her, worried. Probably just a headache, but if this is better than expected she doesn't want to know the other option. "Aloth is probably my heir, and I think I accidentally convinced the registrar that my Lord Maerwald was my uncle?"  
"Wait, how am I your heir?"  
"Better you than someone else? And I think he was so relieved it was Lady ab Nua instead of Lord ab Nua again he didn't actually bother looking at you." She touches one of her ears self-conciously, turning her head towards- huh. Not her twin brother after all. Can't believe she missed the fact the boy's an elf, not folk like she is.  
"That mistake happen a lot?"  
"Yes." They're in unison, equally long suffering, and yeah, that doesn't help at all. She shrugs, getting to her feet, Ituumak coming to sit at her heels, away from Edér? She's pretty sure it's Edér, who's got a gleam in his eye like he's going to try the petting thing again. The aumaua boy drifts off to poke at the ruin, murmuring to himself. That's four, so...  
"Where's the priest?"  
"Arguing." The boy snorts, and adjusts his grip on his sister, who sighs quietly, looking worse by the minute. Yeah, it's too late, they're siblings, they'll deal with it.  
"I'm sure he'll be along." She plucks at the fabric poking out between the buttons on her sleeves, mouth bloodless as she looks over her shoulder.  
"Anything else you need from there?"  
"What? Oh. Yes."  
"Not today."  
"No. I'm not sure if I'm at his grace's pleasure or if he's at mine, but I told the registrar I couldn't stay more than a week." She blinks hard, like that might help, and stands very still. "Did you find what you were looking for?"  
"More or less. You sure you don't need to sit down for a minute?"  
"I'll be fine."  
"You should get changed anyway." The elf boy says, eyes narrowing. Probably trying to think of a way to keep her still for a second, much good it'll do him.  
"Aloth, I'm fine." Yep, seen right through him.  
"You want to go poking around the sewers in your good dress?"  
"True." She blinks hard again, eyes focusing on nothing in particular before she pulls herself back together and pats his hand. "Stop fretting, at least. You're giving me a headache."  
"I'm not fretting."  
"You are!"  
"You're the one who looks half dead!"  
"I do not!" She whips her head around to shout at him more effectively, and it's too much for her, what little color she has left vanishing as she sways on her feet.  
"You might want to lie down for a bit, Nineteen." Edér gets behind them as they stagger drunkenly, the boy not prepared to carry his sister's full weight all of a sudden. "Make Aloth feel better."  
"Yes." Aloth, that's his name, says firmly, as they get their feet again, Edér's help not necessary. "And you should eat something."  
"We going back to the inn then? I could stand a drink." She cocks her head as the girl nods, still bloodless but now looking defeated as well. Needs some good elk, she does, and probably a nap.  
"Very well." Her smile is a wan thing, still fixed more than true, rueful amusement leaking into her face as she pulls herself back together. "If it'll make Aloth feel better."  
Her brother gives her a sharp look, but she's looking back at the aumaua boy, and doesn't notice.  
"Kana, are you coming?"  
"Hm? Oh, no. I'll be along, the brickwork is familiar."  
She nods before he can say anything else, he's one for talking, and then Aloth is pulling her away. Edér shakes his head, and follows, a couple of steps behind as they hiss at eachother, bickering again. That's that, then. She whistles to Ituumak, and heads out after them. That drink sounds really good right now.

_iv._  
_Caed Nua's position, at the most strategically important ford between Defiance Bay and the rest of the northern continent, and the most direct route between the west coast and Eir Glanfath, had made it the first line of defense for pretty much everything since it was first constructed, to the point its ruler was given the title Roadwarden and expected to maintain a standing army large enough to hold the border based on nothing more than location, true nowhere else in the country. The fact it didn't become a trade hub sooner is probably the most surprising thing about it, though given the fact that before Lord Maerwald, nobody had managed to hold the keep for any significant period of time in over a century, perhaps that had more to do with the leadership abilities of the rest of its rulers than anything else. He restored the keep, certainly, and arranged that the road it controlled was the best for shipping, as well that the river dock was kept in good order. By 2275 A.I., most of the trade between Echo Bay and Twin Elms went through the keep, before or instead of going to Defiance Bay, though everything north of Cold Morn went through Readceran channels rather than the more direct route south. Steadfast was little more than a dot on the map, not even that, on some occasions, notable only for the centuries locked White Forge, which rarely drew mercenaries and university teams to attempt to breach the lock, none of which succeeded. Thanks to St. Waidwen's war, the trickle of trade that had kept the town alive outside greed or curiosity about the forge slowed to a halt, merchants choosing to send their goods out to the coast to ship overseas rather than risk the loss or sanction of their goods from either government involved by using the faster, cheaper overland route._  
_It can be assumed that the original thought behind reaching out to Caed Nua was enticing trade back, rather than restarting the forge, despite setbacks from Lord Maerwald's illness and later death..._

She crawls into the bed, feeling no guilt whatsoever about jamming her freezing toes into the crook of Edér's knees, curling up against him and pulling the blankets over her head entirely. He flinches, not as asleep as he'd been pretending to be, and she presses her very cold nose right between his shoulder blades, not that he can feel it through his shirt.  
"Cold?" Yes, that's an awake voice, and she nods against his back, starting to shiver as she finally warms up. He's never going to be able to roll over, Aloth is a strangling fig when he sleeps, and anyways the inn's beds are as expensive as they are narrow, one of them might fall out if he does.  
"Told you you should have gone to bed with the rest of us."  
"I have a house to run, Edér."  
"The books aren't going anywhere."  
"That's not a good thing."  
Worry claws its way up her throat, because her share of whatever they dig up is the only incoming revenue until spring, when the taxes have been collected and tallied and the erl's had his due, and nothing about repairing the gate has been cheap, and she still needs to pay all of the myriad expenses that make the house function, even though she doesn't have the money to do it, and she tucks her chin into her chest, swallowing it back down. She can't afford to vomit, either.  
"You're really worried about this."  
"Yes!"  
He shifts, freeing an arm so he can reach awkwardly over his hip to hold her hand.  
"There isn't any money. I couldn't put the repairs off, especially not the gate, and that took everything left in the vault, between the damage and the looters, and if last year's taxes got collected we never saw a penny of them. My share of whatever we find is the only income the house has until I manage to get things back in order, and it's just not enough!" And now she's crying, damn it all.  
"I'm sorry." She'd roll over herself if it was possible, but the bed's still too narrow and in any case he's still holding her hand. Hopefully he'll just think she's still cold.  
"Are you crying?"  
She doesn't answer, curling tighter in on herself and trying to stifle her tears, this is useless, she should be sleeping if she isn't working, she can't afford this-  
Aloth makes a grumpy noise, maybe lifting his head, she can't tell, mumbling something she doesn't catch as she redoubles her efforts to stop crying, because he'll be awful about it if he notices. Edér answers, and then Aloth wriggles his way up, flopping over Edér's arm to stick his face into hers, staring blearily.  
He's not actually awake, and he blinks at her once, twice, before falling asleep again, trapping Edér even more thoroughly than before. It's so ridiculous she chokes, laughing, and she scrubs her wet face dry with her sleeve so her eyes don't freeze shut.  
She can't say she feels better, she's still worn thin and exhausted, flipping between nightmares that might be memories, blood on her hands, and worry about the house and its people, how she's going to make this work until one or the other kills her, but it's... distant, for once. She might actually sleep soundly, for a little while, at least, for the first time in months.

_v._  
_Steadfast's records are some of the best remaining of the period, not that that's saying much, and its thanks to them we know as much as we do. The reopening of the White Forge attracted every major power capable of getting there, and several that couldn't, with the promise of Durgan steel. Caed Nua, thanks to Lady Aelere's reputation, got there first, quite literally. Rennegild, the mayor at the time, notes several times that she only reached out because she'd heard of her problem solving skills. It evidently paid off; Durgan's Battery was opened, the mine restored, a temple to Abydon opened, and the ogre problem, whatever that was, solved, each credited to the Lady's good sense. The mayor also noted her willingness to overlook fifty years of tax fraud in return for a better deal on shipping, which, considering every ingot headed south passed through her gates at one point or another, worked out very well for her. It isn't known if the tax fraud continued, as Caed Nua would have maintained those records, and they were to a page destroyed by the end of the century. Holwick can put this on Lord Maerwald's shoulders, and through him, Duc Aevar's, if he likes, but since Mayor Rennegild speaks of Lady Aelere as Lady of Caed Nua by name and title on more than one occasion, he will never be anything but wrong about it._

It isn't particularly cold, in here, beside the fire, and they're both only damp at this point, but Alys is shaking so hard she can barely stay upright, teeth clamped tight to stop them from chattering, and still she's beaming madly at them all.  
"You're going to catch your death, what were you thinking?" Aloth hisses from his own tangle of blankets, hair plastered to his face but at least no longer dripping.  
"T-t-tariffs!" She unclenches her jaw just long enough to spit it out, still beaming, before she shakes so hard she nearly falls off the bench, Aloth making a noise like an angry kettle and lunging at her, though it's Kana who's close enough to steady them both before they end up in a heap on the floor. She considers them, held up, one in each hand like bedraggled kittens, and adds another log to the fire.  
"You can explain later." She suggests quietly, permitting the room to focus on her for a moment. "Please try warming up first."  
Alys, who is still dripping, her own hair frizzing into a dark, damp cloud as it leaves a puddle on the floorboards the innkeep isn't going to be very happy about, doesn't even have the grace to look chastened, instead smiling so broadly it's a wonder she isn't giving off light. Kana puts them back on the bench again, and Aloth scoots mulishly up against her, hissing as she tries to move her hair out of the way and only succeeds in spraying him with icy water.  
They've all forgotten her again, as she likes it, even Alys too distracted to keep her in mind for once, trying to fend off half the room while she shakes herself to pieces. She can't quite follow the logic herself, how throwing herself fully clothed into the lake after Ondra's Gifts would affect the tariffs on steel, but Alys isn't wrong about this sort of thing, and Pallegina is nodding to herself, so the logic must be there. Still, she could have asked someone less fragile to go for a swim, rather than doing it herself.  
She gets to her feet again, knees creaking in the cold, occupational hazard, nothing for it, and plucks the towel out of Edér's hands as she goes, ignoring his baffled, fuzzy stare, the tangle of worry and exasperation leaking off his mind, before he can do something stupid. Kana at least has some sense, enough not to scrub at either Aloth's or Alys' heads at least, so she presses it into his hands instead.  
"Isn't someone supposed to be drawing you two a bath?" She asks, mostly to herself, but Alys focuses on her again and shakes her head, a firm no. Firmer than it has to be, probably, but then, she is still trembling. She can feel her eyebrows bounce up, and Alys makes a face, leaning forward to let Kana wrap the towel around the ends of her hair.  
"Why not?"  
Her teeth chatter as she pulls them apart again, worse now that she's not so cold, and she makes another face, instead looking deliberately at her pockets, hung over the rack with the rest of their clothes. Ah. Too expensive.  
"The tariffs won't do anyone any good if you die." She points out, to which Alys outright rolls her eyes, but her shoulders are slumping so she clearly sees the point.  
"I'll call the innkeep, then." Alys nods, again more firmly than she probably needs to, and tries to smile as she leaves the room. Miming doesn't suit her, it's best she gets warm.

_vi._  
_Given that the particular circumstances necessary to offer the chance of someone becoming a watcher, much less doing so and remaining sane, do not exactly run in families, the fact that the title 'The Watcher of Caed Nua' has been something of a debate over the last few centuries is only to be expected. The recent discovery of accounts from the period explicitly noting that both Lord Maerwald and Lady Aelere were due the title by right should have put an end to it, but of course, nothing is that simple. Holwick argues that, given her age and relative inexperience (Lady Aelere would have been about 25 when Durgan's Battery was reopened), the records of the Watcher of Caed Nua, no note of name or title otherwise included, was invited to Steadfast to negotiate shipping between the White Forge and the rest of the south must have referred to Lord Maerwald, the fact he was dead when the forge opened not related to the subject at all. Clearly, the shipping negotiations preceded the actual reopening of the forge, as they usually do in cases like this, and his niece was merely tasked with maintaining agreements already in place when it did finally start producing again._  
_This is of course ridiculous, like many of Holwick's suppositions, because there are extensive records that Lord Maerwald was seriously ill for at least two years prior to the forge's reopening, which happened a year after his death, and the records placing the Watcher of Caed Nua at Steadfast also are very firm on the fact that she, in this case, and as previously mentioned, was instrumental in actually opening the place, solving a puzzle that had stymied everyone from mercenaries to serious historians for centuries. Even if there was a possibility that Lord Maerwald could even have been at Steadfast at all in that period, the fact that the highly favorable terms on the original contract between Caed Nua and Steadfast about moving Durgan steel between the Battery and the rest of the south were replaced within five years with even more favorable terms, this time including not just the Dyrwood and Eir Glanfath, but also Readceras, to the north, means that whatever she was left to do, merely maintaining previous agreements was not one of Lady Aelere's goals._

"I'm almost finished." He can hear the smile in her voice, though she doesn't look up. She taps the chalk against her mouth, thinking, then makes a correction on the slate.  
"If you're making mistakes, you should come back to it in the morning."  
"I have petitions in the morning." She drops the chalk on top of the slate, picking up her pen instead and copying the total over to her book.  
"Is there anything left to complain about?"  
"I'm sure someone will think of something. And his grace is sending a representative sometime soon."  
"You can pay for things again, what more does he want?"  
"I don't think he ever knew I couldn't."  
She sets the pen aside, tapping the book against the desk to knock the excess pounce off the page, and pulls open the drawer it lives in.  
"But I can't say he trusts me, and I honestly can't say I trust any of them these days."  
"Well, you can trust the cooks, I hope. Dinner?"  
"Is it that late?" She looks up, at the closed curtains, and shakes herself. "Goodness."  
It's nice, seeing her desk orderly, as she puts everything away and locks the drawer securely, nicer still that she no longer looks half sick with exhaustion.  
"Is there something wrong?" She looks up, a faint frown spilling across her face as she stands, and he shakes his head quickly.  
"No, no. I'm going to miss you, that's all."  
"Mm." She loops an arm through his, leaning into his shoulder. "Well, I did consider locking you in the library, you know."  
"The library?"  
"Please, you wouldn't notice for a week, and you know it."  
"I'm fairly certain I would, if only when I got hungry."  
"Maybe." She glances at him, laughter in her eyes, and looks away again, heading down the stairs and leaving the door open behind them. "You will come back and visit, won't you?"  
"If I can."  
"When you can, thank you."  
"Alys..."  
"If you don't I'll have to come visit you instead."  
"And the House?"  
"It can look after itself for a season, if it has to. We've all managed so far." That's... true, more or less, though given it was managed by Alys grinding herself to paste on multiple fronts, it's not really fair to call it a good thing.  
"Please don't go wandering around the wilderness by yourself."  
"Then you'll come visit?"  
"When I can." He doesn't add that when might never actually happen. She's never not gone through with her threats before, and now that she's not slowly killing herself it isn't likely she'll just stop.  
"That's all I ask." She pats his arm, cheerful, as they walk out of Brighthollow into the dusk.

_vii._  
_Holwick can pretend his points had merit, and certainly Defiance Bay was an important factor in the movement of goods during the period, as all ports were, but he cannot pretend they still do, or that his evidence was ever anything but flawed. Ignoring primary sources, especially ones that have other evidence to back them, is never a solid basis for anything, even when those sources are considered somewhat fantastical. He can deny Caed Nua's importance, impossible to overlook even in modern terms, can dismiss the facts of its competent leadership during the time, but the facts are plain, and ignoring them doesn't do anything to prove his point. Hopefully, a wider consideration of the topic, and an acknowledgement that the truth is always stranger than fiction, will open up more attentive study, or at least rescue Professor Rua's good name from the doubt it's been assigned, and from there grow our understanding of the context surrounding the Readceran Independence._

**Author's Note:**

> Who is Camlen Holwick? No idea, but Our Author hates him. (What's Our Author's name? No idea on that one either. First person to pick something gets my next pile of nonsense dedicated to them.) What's the recent discovery that changes everything? Also no clue. Maybe they dug up the Steward, though I like to think they started analyzing hat linings. Why is Our Author also wrong on several points? Because they're working off fairly sketchy records themselves, and those sorts of mistakes are pretty typical for this sort of work.  
> The entire joke with Alys is that the first time I played this, I managed to make a character who looked just like Aloth. After it stopped being frustrating, it was hilarious, and given my own experience with 'this person you barely know is your twin, right?' I couldn't resist running with it. Maerwald is not actually her uncle, the RNG just really liked the name, so while she has an uncle (and a brother, and two cousins) named Maerwald, the likelihood they're the same guy is pretty slim.  
> Also, regarding Kana: I like to think he went on to write a huge series of monographs about a wide variety of topics, emerging as an established expert in all of them, and then wrote his memoirs, which were so fantastical nobody believed them, even though they were entirely, 100% true. If Deadfire doesn't back this up at least a little I'm probably going to cry. (If Deadfire doesn't let us rebuild the keep I'm definitely going to cry, so.)


End file.
